Vietnamese billionaire sentenced to death in $12 billion fraud case
No fewer than 85 individuals were convicted in Vietnam on Thursday in the country’s largest-ever fraud case. A 67-year-old woman who was at the center of the operation received the death penalty.
Real estate mogul Truong My Lan, the chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of defrauding the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which she controlled indirectly through proxies, of over 304 trillion Dong (over $12 billion) over an 11-year period.
Ms. Lan was sentenced to death for embezzlement, as well as receiving 20 years each for bribery and violations of banking regulations.
State media reported that the 2,500 loans approved by Ms. Lan through her influences between 2012 and 2022, which accounted for 93 percent of the bank’s lending, financially harmed 42,000 victims and led to $27 billion in losses for the bank.
Prosecutors stated that at one point, over the span of three years, Ms. Lan instructed her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dongs (more than $4 billion) in cash from the bank and store it in her basement—a paper amount weighing over two tons.
All other defendants, including former bankers and ex-government officials, were also found guilty. Four received life sentences, while others were sentenced from 20 to three years of probation. Ms. Lan’s husband, a businessman from Hong Kong, was sentenced to nine years, and her niece, the CEO of Van Thinh Phat, received 17 years.
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Ms. Lan had pleaded not guilty to the embezzlement and bribery charges, as per one of her lawyers who spoke to Reuters.
“Of course, she will appeal the verdict.”
Spectacular Trial
Vietnam’s communist authorities departed from their usual secrecy during the trial. This case marks the most sensational event in the government’s anti-corruption campaign, leading to the resignation of two presidents, two deputy prime ministers, and disciplinary actions against hundreds of officials since its inception in 2016.
Ms. Lan’s trial commenced in October 2022, involving ten state prosecutors, 200 lawyers, 2,700 witnesses, and 104 boxes of evidence weighing a total of six tons, according to state media.
“There has never been a show trial like this, I think, in the communist era,” stated David Brown, a retired U.S. state department official with extensive experience in Vietnam, in an interview with the BBC. “There has certainly been nothing on this scale.”
Rise and Fall of a Tycoon
According to state media, Ms. Lan started her career selling cosmetics at the central market in Ho Chi Minh City with her mother, a Chinese businesswoman.
In 1992, the same year she got married, she established her real estate firm. Vietnam had shifted from its state-controlled economy to a more free-market approach, allowing businesses to prosper.
However, as a communist nation, all land in Vietnam is officially owned by the state. Access to property often relies on personal connections with state officials, leading to an increase in corruption as the economy expanded. Ms. Lan, like many others, seized the chance and began to build her empire.
By 2011, Ms. Lan had become a prominent developer and facilitated the merger of three smaller banks into Saigon Commercial Bank: a financial institution of which she owned over 90 percent of the shares through numerous shell companies and proxies, despite Vietnamese law restricting any individual from owning more than 5 percent of a bank.
In her closing statement to the court, state media reported Ms. Lan confessed to contemplating suicide, saying, “In my desperation, I thought of death.”
